Good, bad and evil: America's motley past in a selection of vintage photos (24 photos)

The selection is a collection of photographs from the mid-19th century from the archives of the Smithsonian Institution. Most of the photos show everyday life in the United States of yesteryear: from families vacationing at Niagara Falls, to postmen at work. Others emphasize the dark side of American history, capturing, for example, trade slaves in Virginia.





The Smithsonian Institution is the largest museum in the world educational and research complex founded in the USA in 1846 year. These and other images can be found in the Smithsonian Open Access archive, which is a collection of more than four million images that users can download and use by to your own discretion.

1. Men on a raft, circa 1910



2. Conestogh cart drawn by oxen. 1890s





3. A rural delivery courier tests a car for snow-covered route, "to show off in front of the photographer." 1905



Comment of the National Postal Museum: "Department hoped to induce carriers to change their horses and wagons to the latest transport technologies. Few carriers have done this. Transport funds at that time were not yet an adequate substitute for horses, wagons and sledges on rural roads.

4. Price, Birch & Co. slave trading firm in Alexandria, Virginia, 1862



5. A ship supplying medical equipment and medicines on the Appomattox River in Virginia, 1865



6. Family in front of Niagara Falls, 1865



7. Rural Free Delivery (RFD) courier captured in a new car at the mailboxes. 1910



Photo from the archives of the National Postal Museum, which comments: “Rural Free Delivery (RFD) carriers have been called replace horses and wagons with the latest transportation technology. This an unknown carrier painted an early electric car with the same paint and the same scheme as the RFD wagons of that era. Obviously in winter is able to move along its route only thanks to the cleared road."

8. The famous Dale Creek Bridge, which no longer exists. Wyoming, 1885



9 Taxidermist William Temple Hornaday Works On A Scarecrow tiger in a shop behind the Smithsonian building in Washington DC Colombia. 1880s



10. Hunters who set up a camp near Raquette Lake in Hamilton County, New York. 1889



11. The consequences of the 1889 flood in the city of Johnstown, which occurred after the destruction of the South Fork Dam on the river Little Connemo in Pennsylvania



12. Photo from the archives of the Smithsonian National Museum African American History and Culture, made between 1895 and 1910



Commentary: “In front of the display window closest to the wagon, on the rear on the right is a group of white men. Sign "Bar for whites" suggests that the African American in the wagon drinks alcohol on street because they don't let him into the bar."

13. An unknown man in front of the house of Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States from 1869 to 1877. August 8, 1885 (Grant himself had died earlier that year)



14 The Devastating Aftermath Of The Tulsa Race Riot Of 1921



Commentii Smithsonian National Museum African American History and Culture: "May 31 and June 1, 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, mobs of white residents attacked an African-American community of Greenwood, colloquially known as "Black Wall Street", which was the deadliest racial attack in US history. Homes, businesses and public structures, including schools, churches, hospitals and libraries, were looted, burned or otherwise destroyed. Accurate statistics are unknown, but the attack resulted in about 10,000 people were left homeless and up to 300 people died, many went missing and were injured."

15. Morris and Essex Canal in the village of Waterloo in New Jersey, 1900



16. Parade of new post office trucks on a snowy street, photo courtesy of the National Postal Museum. Around 1955



17. Postman driving one of the new RHD vans post office through the snowy streets of an unidentified city, 1953



Comment from the National Postal Museum: “In the early 1950s the department has ordered thousands of new postal vehicles as part of post-war modernization plan. Many vehicles have been ordered including such right-hand drive vans.

18. "A group of observers from Harvard University photograph the eclipse." Snapshot 1869



19. Men and women (some of them on horseback) at the window store in Little Eagle, South Dakota. Photo postcard from 1922



20. Loaded with logs, a train 88,568 feet (26,995 meters) long, location unknown. Photo from 1885



21. Flood in the village of Herkimer, New York, 1910



22. An unknown man poses in front of a photo studio in front of a cart loaded with hay. Photos of the period 1894-1904



23. Bridge in Chattanooga, a city in southeast Tennessee, located on the Tennessee River. Photo from the 1860s